I was fired. It was the first time an American Catholic theologian had been censured in this way. At issue was my dissent from church teachings on “the indissolubility of consummated sacramental marriage, abortion, euthanasia, masturbation, artificial contraception, premarital intercourse and homosexual acts,” according to their final document to me. It’s true that I questioned the idea that such acts are always immoral and never acceptable (although I thought my dissent on these issues was quite nuanced).
Well, there be a shocker A catholic priest teaching theology and dissenting that what the church taught was not true got fired. We could use with more of that.
And this…
But in papal sexual ethics, an older methodology still prevails. Unchanging human nature and the eternal law of God, not historical development or the person understood in light of relationships, constitute the primary considerations. The many people both inside and outside the Catholic Church who experience some dissonance between papal sexual and social teachings are right. There is a different methodology at work in these two areas.
Could it be that Papal sexual ethics stay the same because, well, not much has changed in nonpapal sex? I’m a little oogied out just typing that.
I honestly do not get why people continue to keep throwing themselves against this wall, hoping for a different result. Do they think Martha and Bob Peasant didn’t feel the same way? That they wanted to go and have sex with whom and whatever they wanted, whether married or no?
I grew up knowing all churches taught this — sex outside of marriage was a bad idea, you ought not do it. Masturbation is a bad idea and really ought to have some constraints on it, lest you become pretty lonely. Artificial contraception tends to lead to a lot of sex outside of marriage because there’s no visible downside of it.
So if the church has always said this, why do people keep arguing? If they believe absolutely that they are right, why can’t they just go their own way, certain in their rightness? Why is it necessary to bend a 2,000-year-old church to their thinking?
I don’t get it. I used to be on that side of things, and I still don’t get it.
:thumbsup:
Curran said papal methodology is old because it doesn’t consider “the person understood in light of relationships.” I can’t believe he’s never heard of John Paul’s theology of the body, which is all about the person and relationships! Unless perhaps he’s never read it. So either he’s uninformed or worse, deliberately misleading.
He’s just caving into the culture of promiscuity. It leads to death.